Birthday and Bargains

 

Yesterday was my birthday, and I still have some friends across the world who take the trouble to send me greeting cards by post! (Thank you!) 

Even more greetings kept dropping in during the day via FB and Messenger etc, and they were of course appreciated too.

I also spent a lot more time talking on the phone than I normally do in a week - not least because one friend called with whom I don't chat all that often, but when we do talk, we usually end up talking a lot!

Otherwise I did not really do very much. Weather warnings had been issued well in advance for that day, for both high temperatures and high risk of thunder and torrential rain. So I had ended up deciding beforehand to just stay home - and if staying home anyway, I might as well also order my usual grocery delivery for that day... At least that would bring me a lot of "parcels" to unpack! (haha)

The delivery arrived early, so after that I also managed to fit in a half hour walk - before lunch, before it got "too" hot, and before the expected rain. As it turned out, however, the rain and thunder passed us by here... The afternoon just kept on being hot and humid.

This morning we were back to fresher air and cooler temperatures again, though - a much more pleasant day for a walk downtown for some belated "birthday shopping" (and no need to even bring an umbrella). 

 

My main errand was to the pharmacy - not all birthday-related, but besides a couple of prescriptions I also had a number of non-prescription things on my list for which it turned out that I could make good use of various membership discounts (one of them birthday-related). Checking my receipt now, it seems I ended up with an astounding $37 discount in total.

After that I popped into the book shop next door, because they too had sent me a birthday discount offer, and I decided to make use of that to buy myself some 'luxury' stationery, which is something I haven't done in a long time. So I bought these, below (which should last me a while, as I don't write all that much by hand nowadays).

Adding up the discount from the pharmacy + the discount from the bookshop, I actually got these luxury items for ... nothing! (Now that's the kind of magic math I enjoy...)

Before I returned home, I also went to my favourite tea shop and stocked up on three kinds of favourite teas. (No discount, but never mind! - I just love the atmosphere in that shop...)

Photo from 2011, but it still looks pretty much the same!
 

Summer Reading (By Ear)

 

I've been writing very few book reviews so far this year, and none at all over summer. That does not mean I've not been reading - but since my macular degeneration problem (diagnosed back in the autumn), I'm now reading (and re-reading) even more books "by ear" (i.e. listening to them as audio books) - and I do usually find it harder to write reviews from just listening.

In March/April, I listened (again) to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series, all three books. 

My old paperback box of LOTR (from 1977)

In March, I also started re-reading (now as audio books) Elly Griffith's series (15 books) about Ruth Galloway, archeologist, and DI Harry Nelson and his team, investigating crimes in one way or another related to archaeology - set in Norfolk, England. Most of them I previously read on Kindle, and I think I've reviewed all of them on this blog in the past. As this is a series I do find worth reading more than once, I decided to now get them all as audio books as well. (Most of them I was able to get at reduced price.)  So between the beginning of March and the end of July, I re-read/listened to that whole series - with one or two exceptions, in the order that they were written. I enjoyed that, and I'm sure I'll do it again. Some of the individual mysteries I remembered better than others - some I found I had forgotten almost completely. But there is also an ongoing story in the background stretching through all of them, involving the main characters with families and friends.

 

* Ruth’s First Christmas Tree is a short story set between the fourth and fifth books

In between those, I also read/listened to a couple of new additions to two other "cosy crime" series that I've also been following for years by now. With both those series, too, I always enjoy getting back together with the main characters/detectives. Both also have the customer-friendly advantage of offering Kindle+Audible version at reduced price (and have stuck to that throughout).

The Canal Murders by J.R. Ellis
(Yorkshire Murder Mysteries, Book 10)
Narrated by: Michael Page

An Assassination on the Agenda by T.E. Kinsey
(A Lady Hardcastle Mystery, Book 11)
Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden

In August, I've also listened to the latest (4th) book in Elly Griffith's series involving detective Harbinder Kaur: The Last Word. (Narrated by: Nina Wadia)  

(Personally, I do prefer the set of characters in the Ruth Galloway series, though.)

Publisher's summary

A cosy, twisty mystery that reintroduces the glorious characters we met in the bestselling The Postscript Murders - shortlisted for the Gold Dagger.

Natalka from Ukraine has quit her job as a carer and joined up with retiree, Edwin, to run a detective agency on England's south coast. Despite a steady stream of minor cases, Natalka is frustrated, longing for a big juicy investigation such as murder to come the agency's way. She is now living with dreamer, Benedict, who continues to run his coffee shack. Life gets complicated when her Ukrainian mother, Viktoria, joins them from her war-torn country - three's a crowd. Viktoria invades the tiny flat, cooking borscht and cleaning things that are already clean. To add to Natalka's irritation, Benedict and Viktoria get on brilliantly.

Edwin is a big reader of obituaries, so when a local obit writer, Dan Haynes, dies, Edwin decides to look further, only to discover a series of unexpected deaths. Are the clues in the obits themselves? Edwin decides to write an obit to see what clues it throws up. Then he disappears.

The chase to find him takes the team to London and back to the south coast, where the solution lies remarkably close to home. 

After that one, I've also listened to three books by a Swedish author, but as her books don't seem to have been translated to English, no use giving details here.

And I've started a few others that I feel I'd better start over, as I kept nodding off too often... (Whether because of the book, the narrator or just myself being tired is not always easy to sort out!)

"A Cathedral in the Middle of Nowhere"

(Tuesday 6 August, continued) 

Seglora Church, Västergötland, Sweden

 

Not very far from Rydal (previous post), in an agricultural area named Seglora,  this impressive church can be seen from far across the surrounding fields. It is not really a cathedral (i.e. not the seat of a bishop) - but it does look more like it would belong in a big city rather than out in the countryside. It was built in 1903 and originally had no less than 800 seats. In connection with a renovation in 1967, that was reduced to 480 - but that is still a lot for a countryside church.

Before this church was built, there had been three wooden churches on the same spot. The first one was destroyed in a fire back in the 1500s. Another wooden church was built to replace it in the 1600s. In 1729, a third wooden church was built - but that one soon became too small, so that already in the 1860s they began to discuss building a larger one - resulting in the decision in 1901 to build this very impressive one, finished in 1903.

Seglora Church at Skansen, Stockholm

After the new church had been built in Seglora, the wooden church from 1729 was moved (1916-18) to the open air museum Skansen in Stockholm , where it is still popular, and used for weddings and concerts etc. (And I'm mentioning this because that one is a lot more famous than the big one above.)

Seglora Old Church at Skansen, Stockholm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seglora

 

To increase our impression of the extremely rural location for this huge church, close to where we had parked the car, there were sheep grazing... The blackheaded one "baah-haa"-ed at us, so we went over to say hello to them before we left.

"The grass always looks greener on the other side..."
 

And those are the last photos from my August holiday week with my brother.
After lunch the next day, he left and drove back home to Karlstad.

Cotton Mill Museum (Rydal)

 
This cotton mill at Rydal (Västergötland, Sweden) was built in 1853, along the river Viskan - the same river that also flows through the town of Borås (where I live). This is also where the first hydro-electric power station in Sweden was built; and this mill was the first building in Sweden to have indoor electric lighting. 

"Due to the well preserved remains of an old industrial community, this factory, along with several other buildings, have been declared historical monuments. They tell the story of how the Borås region became the textile epicenter of Sweden."

https://digitaltmuseum.se/021015654584/arbetarbostader-i-rydal

A whole community grew up around the cotton mill, with the workers all living in (wooden) apartment buildings along the road nearby. Whole families would work at the mill - also young children, back in the early days. Some people lived their whole life here, in a very closed community.

Inside the mill, the huge machine hall is also preserved pretty much as it was when production stopped. We were able to join a guided tour, with a guide telling us about the history of the place, and demonstrating how the various machines worked, and what they were for - following the process from raw material (imported cotton) to finished product (yarn). 

"The spinning machines in the old spinning hall... represent the production of a novelty yarn that became the main product of the company in the 1920's. It was used in the weaving of rugs, furniture fabrics and as knitting yarn. Production ceased in 2004 [but a few machines are still run for public displays]"

 

The guide only turned on one machine at a time, for a very short while - but that still gave an idea of what an infernal noise all of them going at once must have made together... All day long...!

 

 

An old manual spinning wheel on display, hanging from the roof.
(My paternal grandmother had one like it, but painted green, I never saw her use it but I think it had belonged to her mother, from when they lived on a farm, and had sheep, and spun their own wool.) 

Some old enamelled kitchen items - I remember similar ones in that combination of beige and green from my grandmother's kitchen as well. 

Small Town Charm

 (Tuesday 6 August)

The last full day that my brother was here, we made a somewhat shorter day trip. I had in memory an outing several years ago with my aunt and uncle + a friend of my aunt's. That time we visited an old cotton spinning mill that is nowadays a museum; and afterwards drove on to a small town not too far from there for lunch.

This time, with my brother, we started by driving to the small town (Kinna) for lunch at the same café (I had checked online that they were still in business); and visisted the museum on our way back.

We parked the car behind Kinna Church, and walked across the churchyard to the café, which (as I recalled) was across the street from the church tower.

 

(This church was not open for tourists either. I checked on the way back...)

Another charming old house ▲ close to the charming café ▼

The café, Skrädderiet (Tailor's Workshop), still looked very much like I remembered it. Inside, it's a bit like a 'tardis', with a number of rooms with individual decor - and in summer, they also make good use of their garden at the back. As did we, this time!

 

Checking my blog, I find that the last time I visited this place was 12 years ago, in June 2012. And memory served me right: The place really hasn't changed much since then. If you like, you can check out my old post here. 

(I'll save my new photos from the cotton mill museum for a separate post.)

 

Another Church with an Impressive Gate

 (Monday, 5 August, cont.)

On our way back from the coast we also made a short stop at another church, in Sätila - not all that far from the one at Hyssna (previous post), where we had stopped on the way down the same morning. The church at Sätila too has a similar portal leading into the churchyard as the old church at Hyssna (but somewhat bigger). 

Via a Swedish Wikipedia article I found my way to an English one on the same topic, giving me the English name for it: lychgate. The English article points out that "Lychgates served to differentiate consecrated and unconsecrated space" and adds that stone lychgates might also enhance the sensation of entering another space by actually changing how you perceived sound inside vs outside that gate. The English article also mentions the gate being important in funeral rituals; while the Swedish one stresses that in medeival times, the churchyard and church was sacred ground, where people could seek refuge/sanctuary. So these gates served more than just an ornamental purpose.

The church at Sätila is situated on a hill, overlooking a lake.

Outside that church, there are also two large stone tablets with inscriptions to do with the church's history. The first one is in memory of the church being extended in 1725. The second one in memory of renovations done in 1900-1901 (and naming a lot of people involved, from the king and the bishop and the vicar, to architects and painters...).

 

These records literally "written in stone" also reminded me of the stone with a much shorter message of similar kind that we found at the church at Vänga. So maybe raising memorials to major changes of church buildings was a common tradition in this part of Sweden as well (even if I can't recall having come across a whole lot of them, and especially not placed outside the church rather than within).

Hyssna Old Church

 

 

 

Every now and then on our car trips, we stop for a while at some old church - sometimes just because they tend to have free parking convenient for a stop when one wants to check the map... But it's often also a good place to get out and stretch one's legs a bit. 

Alas, none of the churches we happened to find on our outings this year were open to look into. So I just took photos from outside, and looked up some info afterwards.  

The oldest parts of the old church at Hyssna date back to the 12th century. It's appearance now goes back to renovations made in 1728. In 1907 a new church was built in another spot. This old one was abandoned and started to decay; but in 1922-23 it was restored to how it was before it was abandoned in 1910. Nowadays it's used mostly for special occasions like weddings and christenings. (Source: Swedish Wikipedia article.)

A Place by the Sea

 (Monday 5 August, cont.)

Although Tjolöholm Castle (previous post) is situated on the coast, while we were there we did not really get a sense of being at the seaside. So before we turned back home, I said I also wanted to go to some place where one did get that feeling. 

So we drove on a little bit further south, and found a place called Gårda Brygga ('brygga' is the Swedish word for 'jetty'). Besides a jetty for small boats, it turned out to also offer smooth rocks with a good view towards the open sea, and even a small beach with a small kiosk/café where we could buy something to drink, and sit for a while to absorb that seaside feeling...